I was getting a bit of stick on the last thread regarding the last "ping" and Paul Arnott's discrediting of it but not sure how to reply cross thread. But I think it's important and this is why I think it's nonsense.
Firstly, calling the final location a "ping" is misleading. We should have all seen the screenshots in question in previous threads, assuming they are real, what we have is Jay sharing his location via what seems to be WhatsApp. The exact application isn't important, because the location would have been sourced from Apple Location Services on his iPhone, which would have been active as he was reportedly using Apple Maps.
Apple Location services uses four sources for it's location:
- GPS
- WiFi. Apple effectively crowdsources the locations of WiFi hotspots.
- Bluetooth Beacons.
- Mobile Phone Masts
The latter 3 it uses for triangulation. The algorithm for fusing these sources is proprietary, but we could hazard a guess that in, say, urban areas where WiFi hotspots and masts are plentiful, they can probably save some battery life and bin off the GPS. But Jay was in the back of beyond, so we can be pretty sure the final location was from GPS. Ironically, the fact he was connected to a phone mast makes it more certain. The iPhone uses A-GPS. Which means the Almanac and Ephemeris data can be delivered from the phone network rather than at a super slow bitrate from the satellites. So no long time-to-fix. A nice clear view of the sky to the West too.
Mast Triangulation won't have come into it, so god knows what this influencer is up to. People need to stop taking these self serving nutjobs seriously.